Oswalt lifts Astros over Dodgers

HOUSTON (Ticker) -- Roy Oswalt and Brad Ausmus teamed up in
several ways to beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-1, on Monday
night.

Before leaving the game with a left hip abductor strain after
the sixth inning, Oswalt dominated the Dodgers, allowing just
one earned run on six hits while while striking out nine and
walking no one.

Ausmus called a great game for the Astros and drove in a pair of
runs in a three-run fourth inning that gave Oswalt and Houston
all the runs they needed against an anemic Dodgers offense.

The Astros only needed six hits to improve to 4-0 against Los
Angeles this season. Houston has won eight of its last 10 games
against the Dodgers and improved to 16-9 this season against
teams with records below .500.

After striking out in the sixth, Oswalt went back to the mound
and nearly completed all of his warmup pitches before summoning
Ausmus to the mound. Houston manager Cecil Cooper paid a visit
and quickly removed his ace from the game and called upon former
starter Chris Sampson.

"I hope it ain't too bad," said Oswalt, who added that he has
never had this type of injury before. "I think I came out before
it got too bad. I felt it on the last pitch of the sixth inning,
and I should have told them before I went up there to bat, but I
felt like I could go out there and pitch the seventh.

Ausmus only got one hit Monday, but he drove in Miguel Tejada
and Mark Loretta with two outs off Dodgers rookie starter Eric
Stults (2-1). Ausmus entered the game hitting just .214.

Asked if pitchers were going to have to start pitching around
him, like Ramon Troncoso did in the sixth, Ausmus just smiled
and deflected any praise.

"No, that is a Catch-22 because Roy hits pretty well too,"
Ausmus deadpanned. "That is a double-edge sword."

Ausmus, however, was much more worried about Oswalt, whom he
though could have gone much deeper Monday night.

"He had really good stuff tonight, his pitch count wasn't too
high, but he wasn't able to finish and the bullpen came in and
did a really nice job for us," Ausmus said.

After a dominating performance in his last start, Stults did not
make it out of the sixth inning Monday. He shut out the Chicago
White Sox on June 25, but the Astros got their first run right
away when Lance Berkman hit his 22nd homer of the season in the
first inning.

Houston made it 4-1 in the fourth when Loretta singled home
Berkman, who drew a one-out walk before Ausmus followed with his
11th and 12th RBI of the year two batters later.

"I left a lot of pitches up tonight," Stults said. "My changeup
was high in the zone quite a bit out there, and that is what
really hurt me tonight. I just made two bad pitches to Loretta
and Ausmus and they both got hits."

Sampson worked around four hits after taking over for the
injured Oswalt. He gave up two leadoff hits, but retired the
next three Dodgers in the seventh and got Jeff Kent to ground
into a 6-4-3 double play in the eighth.

"The first thing that went through my head was that I just hope
that Roy was OK. He is our ace," Sampson said. "But then you go
out there and to have a 4-1 lead, I wanted to just pitch and
nail it down. I didn't want them to come back on my watch."

Jose Valverde got the last three outs of the game for his 22nd
save. Valverde has now pitched in three straight games and has
six saves since June 20.

The Dodgers, who just took two of three games from the Los
Angeles Angels of Anaheim while only scoring seven runs in the
series, got their only run in the first inning. James Loney hit
a sacrifice fly to left scoring Andre Ethier, who hit a one-out
double off Oswalt.

"This is starting to get very frustrating," Dodgers manager Joe
Torre said. "We're struggling right now, and we haven't been
able to put many hits together. The thing I have to keep my eye
on right now is to make sure our mental position stays were we
think we can still go out there and win these games."

The Dodgers' bullpen added 2 2/3 innings of scoreless relief
after Stults left the game, giving the team 15 2/3 straight
scoreless innings dating to last Tuesday against the White Sox.